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Friday, 21 November 2014

Once upon a time, when the press was the queen of the media,
professional standards demanded news reports to be an accurate, objective and
precise accounts of events. Since then, TV and digital media have stepped in,
and the objectives of the media have been transformed. The competition for
information has been replaced by the competition for attention. The larger
audience base you have, the better, and the best way to gain an audience is to
create a sensation –a report about an unusual, extraordinary incident – or to
reveal a secret.

However the vast majority of news stories have little to do with our
personal lives, so why should we spend time reading about a scandalous
imprisonment of yet another maniac? Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska has analysed the
special linguistic techniques used to grab the readers` attention, making a
headline seem interesting and relevant and revealing some sort of a mystery.

Some topics are inherently more sensational than others, no doubt. Juicy
gossip about Angelina Jolie`s special pyjamas is likely to attract a greater
audience than a sombre report on bitter living conditions in Sub-Saharan
Africa. However, the main focus of Molek-Kozakowska`s research was on the
linguistic packaging of news: not on what we report, but on how
we report it in order to hook some extra readers. She picked a total of 120
headlines, subheadlines and lead-ins from the most read Daily Mail
articles, and compiled a survey asking participants which of the headlines
seemed the most sensational and what made them so. Later, the sensationalizing
strategies were discussed in focus groups in more detail.

The research identified several features of sensationalism, pertaining
solely to language use, not to the topic. Technique number one hinges on the
narrative structure. Fairly sensational headlines are built in a peculiar way.
The climax – the part of the story with the greatest suspense – goes
first, followed by the complication – a technical term for bits of
narrative that say what happened. The resolution, or the ‘how it all
ended’ bit concludes the list. Beginning with the climax arouses
the reader’s curiosity and makes them want to find out more about this
story. For example:

(1) [Humbling of MISTER Goodwin]: Four years [after
the biggest banking disaster in British history], [the man who caused it sees his knighthood shredded]
(1 Feb. 2012)

[climax][complication] [resolution]

The next way to make an attention grabbing headline is to use emotive
and evaluative vocabulary, as well as strategies such as puns or idioms adapted
from names of films. Consider the following:

(3) ‘Schettino’s a braggart, a show-off and drove the
Costa Concordia like a Ferrari’, claims his former captain as ship slips even
further into the sea (18 Jan. 2012)

The words in italics in (3) evoke mostly negative connotations – well,
that`s because in the media negative items usually have a greater news value
than positive. Hence the extensive use of negative emotive vocabulary.

In short, if you happen to be a budding journalist, it`s worth skimming
through Molek-Kozakowska`s paper before writing your news item – maybe that
will help you to turn a mundane report into a sensation!

Monday, 3 November 2014

Imagine you`re on a holiday of a lifetime, standing in
front of a world-famous site, say the Tower of Pisa. So what do you do? What a
silly question, you might think: climb
it and take funny pictures, of course! But that`s the thing: how do you know
what to do? Where does that knowledge come from and what turns millions of good
citizens into jostling tourist crowds?

According to Crispin Thurlow and Adam Jaworski, there`s more to tourism than
merely seeing what other have already seen, posted on Flickr and written tons
of guidebooks about. The researchers state that we never simply visit places,
but we also take our share in shaping and
making the place itself – that`s why
the same sites have been attracting vast numbers of visitors for decades.

This is achieved through the so-called hermeneutic cycle, formed by a complex layering of mediatised
representations (for example, how a site is depicted in guidebooks or in
travelogues), mediated actions (for instance, performing the Pisa Push –that
is, posing for a photograph to create an illusion of supporting the Leaning
Tower) and remediated practices, with digital technologies enabling us to
reproduce and share experiences with the wider public in a split second. Another
aspect of interest is the enactment of place – which is the capacity to ‘make’
space through the positioning of body.

The
authors used two sources of data in researching Tower of Pisa tourist practices: 10
video clips, extracted from over three hours of footage filmed during the
observation of the site, and a ten-minute YouTube
video of climbing the Tower, posted by an American visitor. These videos
represent typical activity at the site. Body movement and gesture were a focal
point of the research.

The most meaningful element was the Pisa Push.Whether supporting or pushing the
Tower, that`s what you do to show you`re on the
case, you have the knowledge of what other tourists do in Pisa. It also gives
you a sense of ownership and power over space, albeit for a very short time. Another commonly performed action is pointing.
It can be technologically mediated by cameras or laser-pointers, and doesn’t
necessarily involve fingers. Whatever you choose, pointing is always indicative
not only of the object being pointed at, but also of the pointer. Thus, by
pointing, one points not only to the site, but also to oneself. On top of that,
using a camera enables us to capture that moment for posterity – which, in
short, could probably be called the essence of tourism.

The
second piece of data testifies to tourist practice as a ‘safe adventure’. The
point of it all is to climb all the 294 steps to the top – that`s how this
amateur video is staged,with the ascent being its most thrilling point, not the
descent. Once again, it gives you a sense of personal achievement, because you
temporarily conquer the Tower from bottom to top, despite the warning signs.

So, next time you`re on holiday, keep in mind that you
can do more than view sites – you can make them!

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